


Midnight Meeting

by korvidae



Series: Fire Siblings Week 2020 [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fire Siblings Week 2020, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:46:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27154030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/korvidae/pseuds/korvidae
Summary: “Are you scared?” Zuko asked.“No!” Azula shot back quickly. “It’s justloud.”Or: When mother is away, the children must improvise.(Fire Siblings Week 2020 Day 4: Comfort)
Relationships: Azula & Ursa (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Ursa & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Fire Siblings Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1978597
Comments: 6
Kudos: 85





	Midnight Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-canon. Zuko is about 5, Azula is about 3.

The muffled ‘smack’ of a branch hitting the window woke him.

It was autumn, a season that brought with it hurricanes and high winds. This was just a part of life in the Fire Nation, just as much as summer’s sweltering humidity and winter’s constant rain.

Once awake, Zuko felt too alert to sleep. He stared up into the dark canopy above him, the prolonged whistle of the wind blowing through gaps in his window, creating a high pitch drone to accompany the percussive rhythm of the branches hitting against the outside wall. He closed his eyes in an attempt to return to sleep, only to be jolted awake by the distinct sound of a door opening and closing in the corridor beyond his room.

Fear and curiosity briefly warred within Zuko. When curiosity won out, he heaved himself out of bed to investigate the sound.

The dark hallway of the royal apartment stretched out before him. The very end was just barely illuminated by the cloud-splotched moonlight streaking in through a small round window. The high-pitched whistle rose and fell with the force of the gale outside. Despite the noise, the corridor felt eerily still.

Mother and father were away—they were traveling through the colonies for the next fortnight. Zuko couldn’t remember very much at all before Azula was born and had absolutely no recollection that his mother had ever been away from them for more than a day until now. It left him feeling vulnerable, standing in the dark, to think that it would be more than a week before he would see her.

Doors were evenly spaced along the walls: there was Azula’s room, the private parlor where he and Azula played, their father’s private study, a few guest chambers, and their parents’ chambers. His and Azula’s governesses, Lo and Li, were sleeping in the guest chambers on the far end. Zuko moved toward the door to his immediate left, which opened to his mother’s dressing room.

Even in the dark, his fingers felt the latch of the door with practiced ease. He and Azula had spent most of their young lives in this room. His parent’s chambers were a set of three adjoining rooms: his mother’s dressing room, their parent’s bedroom, and their father’s dressing room on the far end, which was accessible only by a service door. Their mother’s dressing room had once been their nursery when they were babies. Once Zuko was old enough to move into his own room, Azula had come along, and it had only been in the past year that Azula had been relocated to her own bedroom, and the dressing room returned to its original function.

Of course, that didn’t prevent Zuko and Azula access: almost immediately as soon as either of them could walk, they would find their way to their mothers’ bedside when struck by a bad dream or frightened by an angry storm. Sometimes, their father would let them climb into bed to be held by their mother. However, when his patience was lacking, mother would lead them to the settee in her dressing room, and they’d cuddle up there, sometimes sleeping all the way until morning.

He knew Azula still visited mother in the night—sometimes the door would squeak in its track and wake him.

Zuko placed his ear against the door. He could hear the muffled wind blowing against the far side of the chamber and the palace creaking and groaning in response. In the din, Zuko made out a ‘thwap!’ of a cushion hitting the floor and knew then that Azula was in there. Carefully, he slid the door open, stopping it right before it hit the squeaky spot that never failed to wake him. He was small enough to slip through the narrow opening.

Zuko couldn’t understand why everything in the palace had to be so… _big_. The rooms were huge, the beds were enormous—it made the act of crossing his mother’s dressing room feel all the more daunting in the dark. And there was the added pressure of staying completely silent. The last thing Zuko wanted to do was spook Azula, especially since she had just started firebending and hadn’t gotten a firm grasp on her abilities yet.

With an abundance of caution, Zuko slowly slid the screen open. In the dappled moonlight, he saw a large, lumpy shape in the middle of the enormous bed. Tip-toeing closer, he bit back a laugh when he got a better look: Azula’s little head, a corona of sleep-mussed hair encircling it, was sticking out of a mound of blankets. She looked like a ruffled gopher-rabbit looking out of its hole.

“Zuzu?” Azula whispered into the darkness. “Is that you?”

“Yeah. What are you doing in here?” Zuko whispered as he bumped into something squishy. Azula must’ve flung some cushions onto the floor when she was constructing her blanket nest.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Azula began as Zuko heaved himself onto the mattress. A violent gust of wind rattled the windows, and they both shuddered.

“I forgot they left,” she admitted quietly.

Zuko understood. “Are you scared?” he asked.

“ _No!_ ” she shot back quickly. “It’s just _loud_.”

Zuko crawled over to her, taking a heavy quilt off her pile, and slipping beneath it.

“What are you doing?”

“You look comfortable,” he shrugged. “I can’t sleep, either.”

He could feel her eye him warily in the dark. “Okay,” she murmured.

She stiffened for a moment as he shifted in the blankets, cocooning himself. As the wind raged outside, they sat together without speaking for a long time, merely existing in the dark. Gradually, his eyelids began to feel heavy, and he realized Azula had relaxed enough beside him that she was now leaning into his side, her messy head resting on his shoulder.

“The laundresses haven’t come yet,” she slurred sleepily, confusing her brother. “They still smell like her.”

Extricating one arm from Zuko’s quilt so she could lay herself down onto the mattress, she seemed content with her explanation and fell asleep.

Later, Lo and Li would find the prince and princess curled up together under a sea of blankets like two fire-ferret kits nestled in the blue light of dawn. They would decide to let them sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, as always, are appreciated 😊
> 
> (Edited 5 January 2021)


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